


Three days on the other side

by madnessfk



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Reverse Portal AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 10:24:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5044705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madnessfk/pseuds/madnessfk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So in case you don't know about Reverse Portal AU, it's basically an AU where Stan was the one to be sucked through the portal. He also lost his hand. Nice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three days on the other side

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Три дня по ту сторону](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/151375) by madnessfk. 



“Hey Grunke Stan, how did you lose your hand?” — asks Mabel, sweet little Mabel, who simply doesn't see this kind of questions as something horrible, who simply doesn't see those kind of questions like something at all. Sweet little Mabel that put stickers all over Stan's old ragged coat: sun stickers, hearts stickers, puppy, kitty, stars, bunnies, muffins stickers — Mabel has a lot of those, and she didn’t hesitate to give them up: she said stickers make everything look better. Stan decided not to argue — how can he argue with sweet little Mabel anyway? Mabel follows him everywhere, she smiles at him and offers him a thing called “Mabel juice” (witch, as far as Stan is concerned, consists above all of a small dinosaur toy and a lot — a lot — of glitters) just to make him feel better: she doesn't know that Stan didn't "feel better" for years — there's no much sense to start now.

Or maybe she does know, but keeps smiling, and as if, _as if_ Stan can not to smile back when she looks at him this way. It just... Happens. Stan just doesn't want to upset sweet little Mabel.

So when she asks, Stan does what has to be done — he smiles and he says: “Haven't I told you yet? Okay, so I'm in a middle of the sea on a boat, and there is that giant shark!”

Three days on the other side of the portal, and Stan was almost dead. Stan didn't know much about supernatural beings or magical monsters. If — he thought back then — if Ford was the one to be sucked into, he would probably deal with this shit much better than Stan does, because, apparently, Ford managed to become a supernatural beings-magical monsters-expert. But Stan, oh boy, what a surprise, Stan isn`t Ford. Stan knew how to quickly find a place to spend a night in, a place with heat and shower and maybe, if he's lucky enough, a place without any bugs in a bed mattress; Stan knew how to get a job to get a little cash and maybe — if he's lucky enough — the job won't be that dirty; Stan knew people to borrow money from, Stan knew people to borrow money from to return the debt to the previous ones; Stan knew most of the America`s corners where teenagers were buying drugs — mostly because once in a while Stan used to be that jerk that sells it; Stan knew black markets of Colombia; Stan knew pimps of Portland; Stan knew a lots of things that an exemplary citizen doesn`t supposed to know. Stan didn't know what to do when you're attacked by a monster that looks like a spider and a dog and an ostrich and a human at the same time. Ford probably would have known. He would have dealt with it much better. He always did.

"Great uncle Stan", — starts Dipper carefully, smart little Dipper, who had finally made his way throughout his unhealthy awkwardness, — "can I ask you something?"

Dipper is really-really clever, unusually clever for his age; he's usually the first guy to figure out the killer in that weird TV-show they watch on Friday nights. Dipper looks at Stan cautiously from around the corner, and whenever Stan looks back, Dipper pretends he was just passing by, way too afraid to come any closer. Eventually he does though, and Stan can see just how much Dipper wants to start asking him all about the other side of the portal, just how much Dipper has to know. Dipper looks up to him as if Stan is some sort of a mysterious sci-fi story action hero, and after some time he does come closer and he asks his question. Stan never answers fully, never the whole truth, because Dipper, surely, is really-really smart, but he is so, so little, but as if, _as if_ Stan can not to answer anything at all. Dipper doesn't know that most of the stories Stan feeds him are full of lies.

He probably does know it, but he keeps asking anyway, and Stan keeps answering and hopes that one day Dipper will just give it up. Somehow, he knows Dipper hopes for the same thing: that Stan gives up lying.

“Haven't I told you yet? Okay, so I'm in a middle of a spaceship, and there is that huge alien!”

Three days on the other side of the portal, and Stan was almost dead. A group of monsters that looked like a spider and a dog and an ostrich and a human at the same time haunted him through the gray dessert and gray mountains and gray woods, and Stan had no idea if it were all the same monsters that just grew a fond of him the same way cat grows a fond of a mouse, or was it just the place that was full of monsters like that, hungry and craving for a piece of Stan. Those monsters had long crooked necks and long fangs, and thick fur sticking out here and there, and thin bones bulging from underneath the white skin, and deep hollow eyes colored as puddle water, and sharp broken teeth. Monsters waited for Stan in the dark, waited for him in the sun light, they hid around the corners and in the brooches of trees, monsters waited to attack Stan when he wasn't ready, and even though Stan thought he was always ready, somehow they managed to find that second he wasn't.

Stan barely slept, and whenever he did, it was a short, troubled sleep filled with nightmares and grim visions that seemed real hours and hours after awakening, and Stan just felt even more tired after that; Stan barely ate, and whenever he did, it were moisty, disgusting fruits that grew on a trees and tasted like mold, or tiny hamster-looking creatures who lived in a dessert — their meat felt hard and rotten. Stan looked like a corpse, fighting for what was left of his life, he was covered in mud and sweat and blood and felt like he was ten years older than he was supposed to be, always tired, always in pain, but somehow still living despite of everything even though he was horribly bad at it. Ford would have dealt with it better than Stan did. But Stan knew he has to make it, has to keep going just for one more day, just two days more, just a little bit longer, because Ford is coming for him, he's gonna be here any minute. Any minute. Just a little bit longer.

Three days on the other side of the portal, and Stan was almost dead. Three days on the other side of the portal, and it felt like forever. Just a little bit longer.

"Stanley", — Ford calls softly: Stan doesn't even turn his way, he doesn't need to, he doesn't want to; he doesn't want to see that look Ford has, that insanely guilty look that makes Stan want to hit him again and hit him harder. Ford seems so miserable, so miserable that it makes Stan feel sick.

"Stanley, talk to me", — Ford asks quietly, — "please".

Ford has a look of a person sentenced to death, already with a hanging rope around his neck just waiting to be pushed and strangled. Ford has a look of a person living in a constant pain, in a constant torture, as if there was a needle right in the middle of his chest reacting to his every move. Ford has a look of a person who got broken a very-very long time ago.

Stan thinks it's not fair because out of them two he is the broken one.

"Tell me what happened", — Ford whispers. Stan doesn't even turn his way to avoid that broken look of his.

Stan isn't angry at Ford for leaving him: Stan is angry at himself for thinking Ford wouldn't.

"Haven't I told you yet?", — Stan laughs. He doesn't really feel like it.

Three days on the other side of the portal, and Stan was almost dead. He dreamt of the sea and seagull creams. Just a little bit longer, Ford is coming for him. He dreamt of the sea and seagull creams all the time. Stan was so tired he couldn’t move. Stan was so tired he missed something prowling in the darkness, moving closer to him. He barely remembers now what happened next that night. Huge monster that looked like a spider, and a dog, and an ostrich, and a human at the same dug it`s teeth, long, thin and very-very sharp teeth, into Stan`s flesh, cut through him like a knife through the hot piece of butter, and then snapped loudly, bones breaking like a nutshell breaks under someone`s shoe.

It was the third day. Three days on the other side of the portal, and Stan was almost dead. The monster ripped his hand out of his body as if Stan was some sort of a interchangeable parts toy soldier, and the hand was hanging out of its ugly fetid jaws, except it didn`t even look like a hand any more, it looked like a piece of meat, shapeless and bleeding. Stan still remembers the other monster showing up from the dark, angry and hungry as well, attacking the first one to take its prey from him, and while they were fighting for Stan`s life, Stan desperately tried to run away, to crawl away, to hide somewhere, because he knew he _has to_ keep going just a little bit longer — Ford is going to save him any minute now. Stan couldn`t remember exactly how he survived. Actually, the only thing he memorized well were those first three days. The rest thirty years were a blur. 

And then there were parallel universes after a parallel universes after a parallel universes after a little more of a parallel universes and a long-long years of a false hope for the portal home to be reopened one day. Stan isn't angry at Ford for leaving him. Stan was angry at him for the first thirty seconds while punching him in a face, everything after that — it wasn`t really an anger, it was above anger, it was above anything. Stan would have said he felt betrayed, but he didn’t: betrayal would mean that Ford actually used to be on his side, and Ford wasn`t on his side for such a long time that Stan wasn`t sure if it counts at all.

Stan isn't angry at Ford for leaving him: Stan is angry at himself for things can ever go back to where they were before. But now, as he watches Ford looking so horribly, insanely broken, he realizes, that things will never be the same. And with this realization, something inside of him, something that hasn`t been broken before, breaks as well.

Three days on the other side of the portal, and Stan was almost dead. Three days at home, and Stan feels like he is.


End file.
